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Dealing Responsibly with Conflicts in College Towns

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

Robert Wechsler

How does a council deal with conflicts in a company town? My first
response to this would be, are there still company towns? Well,
certainly not as many as there used to be, but probably most of the
ones that remain are college towns.

That's the case in Loma Linda, according to an article in yesterday's
San Bernardino Sun. Four of
five council members, including the mayor, work for Loma Linda
University or its Medical Center. The university employs 13,000, and
Loma Linda has 22,000 residents, so the university is an overwhelming
force in town.

Yes, sometimes the council votes against the university (professors and
other university types can be pretty contrary), but its members
recognize that they have ongoing conflicts of interest, and that they
have to handle them as responsibly as they can under the circumstances.

One university administrator said, "We are not
working for an organization that has
the ability to corrupt a politician. It's a not-for-profit that doesn't
make much money and it's not really in the position of buying votes."
Sorry, but that simply isn't true. Universities are major political
players in local governments across the country.

Here's the Loma Linda council's clever solution to the problem of recusing
themselves out of a quorum every time the university comes up in their
deliberations, which must be pretty often. The four conflicted members choose straws, and the
two that win, plus the one without a conflict, discuss and vote on the
matter. That seems as good and fair as any solution.

At least voters know their representatives' affiliation, and many or
most of them might very well feel most comfortable with the
affiliation. Those who prefer someone affiliated with the
university but independent in thought can choose that combination. In
this situation, acting in one's personal
interest, in terms of furthering the interests of the university, might
be acting in the public interest, as well. In a college town, the two
are hard to pry apart.